Place:Drayton in Hales, Shropshire, England

A Vision of Britain through Time provides this brief description of the parish of Drayton in Hales from John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles of 1887:

"Drayton in Hales, par. (ry. sta. Market Drayton), in [counties] of Salop [or Shropshire] and Stafford[shire], 14,375 ac., pop. 5,954."

Drayton in Hales was the ancient and ecclesiastical parish from which the civil parish and urban district of Market Drayton was carved in 1914. Prior to that time, Market Drayton was the township of Drayton Magna within Drayton in Hales parish. The parish covered not only the town of Market Drayton, but a large area on both sides of the county border between Shropshire and Staffordshire. The other Shropshire townships within Drayton in Hales were Betton, Drayton Parva, Longslow, Sutton and Woodseaves. A description (usually brief) from a gazetteer of 1868 can be found in GENUKI

In 1914 the civil parish of Drayton in Hales was abolished and replaced by expanding two existing parishes: Moreton Say (area: 642 acres transferred) and Norton in Hales (area: 2,189 acres transferred) and a third newly created parish: Sutton upon Tern (area: 3,739 acres). The township of Betton became part of the parish of Norton in Hales; the township of Longslow became part of Moreton Say; and the townships of Sutton and Woodseaves became parts of Sutton upon Tern. Drayton Parva (or Little Drayton) was attached to Market Drayton.

The sections of Drayton in Hales on the Staffordshire side of the county border (the townships of Almington and Bloore-with-Tyrley and Hales) were transferred wholly to Staffordshire at this time.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides this description of 19th century Drayton in Hales from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"DRAYTON-IN-HALES, or Market-Drayton, a town, a parish, a [registration] sub-district, and a [registration] district on the mutual border of Salop and Stafford; and a division in Salop. The town stands on the Tern, adjacent to the Liverpool and Birmingham canal, 19 miles NE of Shrewsbury. A railway to it from the London and North-western at Nantwich, 10¾ miles long, was opened in October, 1863; and another railway to it, on a line with this, and to be in connexion with it, from the Great Western at Wellington, 15½ miles long, was in operation previous to 1869. The town occupies the site of a Roman station, and is the Driatune of Domesday; and it had anciently a White priory, founded by Bishop Northborough. It has a head post office of the name of Market-Drayton, two banking offices, two chief inns, three dissenting chapels, a workhouse, a grammar school with £39 from endowment, and other charities with £232; and is a seat of petty sessions. The church was built in the time of King Stephen, but has a steeple of much more recent date; and was renovated in 1787. Markets are held on Wednesdays; and fairs on the Wednesday before Palm-Sunday, the Wednesday before 22 June, 19 Sept., and 24 Oct. Manufactures of haircloth, paper, and malt are carried on. Population: 3,661. Houses: 803.

"The parish includes the townships of Drayton-Magna, Drayton-Parva, Betton, Longslow, Sutton, and Woodseaves, within Salop; and the townships of Almington and Bloore-with-Tyrley and Hales, within Stafford. Acres: 14,216; of which 7,526 are in Salop. Rated property: £25,411. Population: 5,242. Houses: 1,104. The property is much subdivided. The manor belonged to Combermere abbey. A fierce battle was fought, in 1459, on Bloore-heath, about a mile from the town, between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield. Value: £280. Patron: Richard Corbet, Esq.

"The chapelries of Drayton-Parva and Hales are separate benefices."

The statistics for the registration district and the registration sub-district have been omitted.

Another description from the The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland 1868 can be found in GENUKI.

Research tips

• The historical short form for Shropshire was "Salop". This is quite often found in archive material.
• Shropshire Archives, Castle Gates, Shrewsbury SY1 2AQ
• Shropshire Family History Society.
• The GENUKI main page for Shropshire provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and there is also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then.
• GENUKI also provides transcriptions of parish registers for numerous parishes throughout Shropshire. These will be noted at the bottom of this list as time permits for the parishes involved. Each register is preceded by historical notes from the editor-transciber and other details than simply births, marriages and deaths that have been found in the individual books from the parishes. These registers probably only go up to 1812 when the proscribed style for registers across the country was altered.
• GENUKI lists under each parish further references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. (URLs for these other websites may not be up to date.)
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence in 1851 with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Shropshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are similar pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions that existed pre-1974. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
• The two maps below indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.

• Map of Shropshire illustrating urban and rural districts in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. (Unfortunately the online copy of this map has pencil codings in each parish which make it difficult to see the orignal.)
• Map of Shropshire urban and rural districts in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. This is not a repeat of the first map. There were a number of changes to urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.

• A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time. Some of the hundreds were broken into separate sections with other hundreds in between.
• The website British History Online provides four volumes of the Victoria County History Series on Shropshire. Volume 2 covers the religious houses of the county; Volume 4 provides a history of agriculture across the county, and Volumes 10 and 11 deal with Munslow Hundred, the Borough of Wenlock and the Telford area (i.e., the northeastern part of the county). The rest of the county is not presently covered. References to individual parishes will be furnished as time permits.
• A transcription of the registers of Market Drayton Independent Chapel (1776-1836) is online and is provided through the auspices of GENUKI.